Friday, July 31, 2009

Canon Rebel: The Results

Well I think it went well, all things considered. All things being that I'm not a professional photographer. I didn't expect much of myself and the session and I was pleasantly surprised. That camera is magic. I absolutely hated to give it back this week.
After Sonora was born Jon and Lisa decided that instead of buying one fancy portrait session they would buy a fancy camera to take those portraits themselves (or have a friend do it). I think that is such a good idea. I'm totally doing that when we have kids. Or sooner. Like this Christmas (Zeb? You listening?)

This girl. This girl is pure sunshine.

Lisa is due August 28, but since she's got twin (girls) in there she really expects them any day. Sonora is so excited about her sisters.

Jon is perhaps my oldest friend. When I was an infant through toddler his family and mine lived together and Jon and I shared a room. We walked down the aisle first with each other (that was even a trivia question at his wedding - so funny!) as flower girl and ring boy for Aunt Amy and Uncle Tim's wedding. I tried to set him up with all my close friends. He reciprocated with his friends (neither worked). I was Jon's date to his Air Force Academy Graduation Ball. We were bridesmaid/bridesman in each other's weddings. And now, through a wonderful twist of fate and FBI bureaucracy, we live 20 minutes away from each other.

Jon went and married this incredible girl. She's a down to earth southern belle if there ever was one. The first time I met Lisa, when I flew out to be her bridesmaid, I didn't realize that if you're in the South it's a huge faux pas to not paint your toenails. Mine were all raggedy and gross and I thought she must think I'm an idiot. Turns out she couldn't care less about my toenails and now we're fast friends.


Together they produced the most freaking adorable and sweet little girl - a little girl who, at 2, is distraught when she sees anyone else crying, and who thinks ice cream makes the world go round, and who wants only her Uncle Beb to read books to her. She has my heart completely.

I don't even know if I can handle two more if they're half as wonderful as Sonora, and I'm pretty sure they will be.



Jon and Lisa have chosen, this time, to have a natural birth with a midwife, a decision that I've loved to hear them processing. Most midwives will not do multiple births, but Lisa found the one in Maryland who will and after a lot of thought and research she's determined that to be the healthiest option for her babies. I can hardly wait.

Back to the photos: I love what the camera allowed me to do. I was surprised, though, to see how all over the map my editing is. I use both Photoshop and GIMP, and actually I'm a bit more impressed with the free GIMP than the spendy Photoshop at this point. Though really both are so user friendly that it's just a matter of my consistency. My aesthetic mood seems to change day to day and I warm or cool photos, contrast or overexpose them accordingly.

I love love love editing photos, but I was extremely frustrated today as I opened photos in several different programs or viewers, or on different computers and found that the perfect white balance I'd achieved on my home computer looked completely sallow/yellow on my work computer or vice versa. I'm not quite sure how to resolve all that yet but I'll definitely be working on it.

At any rate, though, I'm still overwhelmed by the results - far from professional but so far above what I'm used to.

This family, in this narrow sliver of time, is something beautiful to watch and capture. But still, I can't wait for the next phase.

6 comments:

Marianne Elixir said...

Beautiful photos! Lovely people too.

It's fun to see someone with the same due date with twins. People always tell me I am so big that it must be twins and I try to tell them that no, if it were twins I would be MUCH bigger. Now I could point them all to your blog.

Thanks for sharing!

IndianaJones said...

these are beautiful. AND you nailed one big reason I don't edit. I got too frustrated with the difference from screen to screen...I plan on asking Bruce Berg about this at this years Cape camping trip that we are so blessed to get to attend for the first time ever! I think it might have to do with the quality of the computer you edit on to begin with but that's just a theory.

You did a really lovely job and I wouldn't sell yourself short...I think these come pretty darn close to looking professional.

Melanie said...

Great job! I agree - these are beautiful.

Billi London-Gray said...

Beautiful, Sarah.

Dad said...

Great photos indeed. You can be the official family photographer from this point on. But that means we have to get together more often so that there is more family for you to photograph.

JShaffer said...

Oh Sarah, you are gonna make me cry! Thank you for the beautiful photos and the gracious commentary! We just love you and Zeb so much and are so so thrilled to get to spend time with you! I can't tell you how much your friendship means to me - even if you never painted your toe nails again! (Besides, some of us can not only not reach our toes these days, we can't even remember what they look like.)

Thank you for capturing this moment in time - priceless!